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The transnational exile complex: how to think about Africa diaspora politics

The transnational exile complex: how to think about Africa diaspora politics

Alexander Betts, Will Jones

Recent work on a range of diasporic populations, from Eritreans to Zimbabweans, has shown that diasporas have a politics of their own which extends beyond the particular place in which these populations live, and which is taken extremely seriously, not least by the governments of the homeland.
The purpose of this paper is to try and make sense of this politics. It identifies a gap in the current literature, proposes a conceptual framework as a way forward, provides some brief applied cases to illustrate its use, and indicates what research agenda we believe follows from this conceptualisation of transnational political mobilisation. The structure of the piece corresponds to those four purposes.